‘The devastation left behind when someone dies’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Margot Kinberg

My guest today on The Undercover Soundtrack is mystery novelist Margot Kinberg. She says songs and the ideas she gets from them have always been woven into the stories she writes. Her novel B-Very Flat, which spins around the murder of a young music student, drew inspiration from JS Bach to Billy Joel to Andrew Lloyd Webber, influencing the way she developed her characters and understood their troubles. Join me now at the red blog for the full story

‘I needed the plangent, plaintive music of the 12th century to understand Hugo’s pain’ – Katherine Langrish on The Undercover Soundtrack

We’re getting medieval this week on The Undercover Soundtrack. My guest is Katherine Langrish, the acclaimed author of several fantasy novels for children and young adults, including the Troll Fell trilogy. She says she usually has to write in silence – but her latest novel, Dark Angels (The Shadow Hunt in the US), didn’t come alive until she found her way to the 12th-century troubadour songs of southern France. Pull up a chair to the red blog and let her spin you a magic, medieval tale.

‘Rhythm taps into the part of my brain that lets the words flow’ – Jennie Coughlin

My newest guest on The Undercover Soundtrack is Jennie Coughlin, author of Thrown Out: Stories from Exeter. When she’s on a deadline she puts Simon and Garfunkel’s The Boxer on repeat for hours – and cheerfully admits that these days she’d be diagnosed as Asperger’s. Catch the beat here

‘Gets me in the mood to think about dark, druggy music brutal enough to stun whales’ – Corwin Ericson’s Undercover Soundtrack

My newest guest on The Undercover Soundtrack is Corwin Ericson, author of the surreal and epic Swell. His soundtrack is hairy, harped and harpooned, and includes a choir of screaming Finnish men. Catch the wave at the red blog

‘If I’m writing fiction there must be music… invasive music to kick me in the heart’ – Nicola Morgan on The Undercover Soundtrack

My guest this week on The Undercover Soundtrack is award-winning author Nicola Morgan, who has around 90 published titles to her name. She’s talking about how music has long been her muse for writing – including the undercover influences for her latest release Mondays are Red.Come on over…

Imagine Desert Island Discs for novels – welcome to The Undercover Soundtrack… on the red blog

Imagine a novel could guest on Desert Island Discs. For those of you receiving outside the UK, Desert Island Discs is an immensely popular and long-running show on BBC Radio 4, where guests are asked to choose pieces of music that form a soundtrack to their lives.

After my recent co-post with Porter Anderson about undercover soundtracks to our novels, I am excited to announce a series…

Starting today, the red blog will be hosting writers who use music in the creation of their novels. I’ve got scores of them lined up to talk about special pieces that have guided them to a deeper understanding of a character, or helped populate a mysterious place, or clarified a particular, pivotal moment.

First up is Dan Holloway, founder member of the literary fiction collective Year Zero Writers and the literary project eight cuts gallery. His novel The Company of Fellows was voted favourite Oxford novel by readers at Blackwell’s. He’s talking about Songs From The Other Side of the Wall, and the music that helped him develop his rather individual characters.